Marcus Zegarowski hit one of two clutch 3-pointers that allowed Creighton to cap off 16-point comeback and defeat Seton Hall. (Photo by Bob Dea/Daly Dose Of Hoops)
Wednesday night looked, for most of the evening, like the statement victory Seton Hall craved coming off a heartbreaking setback on the road against Villanova eight days prior.
Owners of a commanding 68-52 advantage with 10:40 remaining in regulation, and an equally comfortable 79-71 cushion with three minutes to play, the Pirates were poised to use a scorching first half and gritty second stanza to put 17th-ranked Creighton away before the visiting Bluejays ripped off 10 unanswered points as part of a game-ending 14-2 run to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat and leave Newark with an 85-81 victory over Seton Hall, completing a regular-season sweep after their 36-point rout of the Pirates on January 6 in Omaha.
Marcus Zegarowski’s straightaway 3-pointer with just over a minute to go in regulation swung the pendulum Creighton’s way, giving the Bluejays (12-4, 8-3 Big East) an 81-79 lead before Takal Molson tied the score on a driving layup. On the ensuing possession, however, Mitch Ballock — a thorn in Seton Hall’s side the entire night — knocked down the last of his seven triples to put the visitors ahead once and for all after Shavar Reynolds was unable to convert a three for the tie in the final seconds, thereby allowing Creighton to ice the game with a free throw by Denzel Mahoney, who secured the rebound on Reynolds’ attempt. The loss dropped the Pirates to 9-7 on the year, and 6-4 in conference play, with Villanova coming into town Saturday afternoon in a hotly-anticipated rematch between the Big East’s two signature programs of recent years.
Before the Wildcats take the Prudential Center floor, though, we step into the batter’s box in relief of Jason Guerette with a handful of observations from the proceedings in New Jersey:
1) Captain Comeback
An unconscious start to the game saw Creighton make eight of its first nine 3-point attempts and 10 of 15 in the first half before shooting a rather pedestrian 7-of-20 from distance after the intermission. While head coach Greg McDermott stemmed the tide with a 2-3 zone defense that prevented Sandro Mamukelashvili from imposing his will on the Bluejays, his two veteran guards went to work chipping away at a 16-point deficit, their efforts reaching a crescendo in the final minute.
“He makes my life a whole lot easier,” Ballock said of Zegarowski, whose own heroics set the wheels in motion for Wednesday’s win. “When he came off that ball screen, he made the right read. I think we flipped it into that step up off a double, and Marcus came up and hit that big-time shot. When you have a point guard like that, who’s always looking to make the right play and not really making a play for himself, but lets the game come to him, then everything opens up. They were just big shots to help us get to a victory.”
“Mitch does a great job of coming in and ghosting ball screens,” Zegarowski added, recounting Ballock’s dagger. “When he came and ghosted, I think (Myles) Cale was guarding him and Cale could have jumped out at me. He created separation and I just kind of threw it over and delivered it, and he made a tough shot down the stretch.”
2) Aiken for Bryce’s presence?
Bryce Aiken had by far his most productive night as a Pirate, leading Seton Hall with 21 points on 7-of-10 shooting in arguably his biggest highlight of what has been an injury-riddled campaign for the graduate transfer from Harvard. But his presence was clearly lacking down the stretch, a decision Kevin Willard chalked up to conditioning and not being able to handle long spells of action just yet.
“BA has a minutes restriction a little bit, still,” the head coach remarked. “He played great and he’s looking great, he’s been playing great in practice, but again, long stretches of time. He can’t play nine, eight minutes in a row.”
Willard did reveal, however, that he was beyond satisfied with the production he received from Aiken, as well as his potential as the Big East season heats up.
“I thought it was really great having him out there,” he gushed. “Him being aggressive really kind of, I thought, changed the tempo of the game for us. I’m really excited about where he is.”
3) Fortifying The Rudder
Seton Hall gave up an uncharacteristic 33-13 surge to Creighton over the final 11 minutes of action, undoing what could very well have been the Pirates’ best first half of the season, wherein 54 points were scored in what materialized into a track meet against the Bluejays’ free-wheeling uptempo attack. Regardless, the breakdown was something that was acknowledged from both ends of the locker room after the final buzzer.
“We didn’t protect the 3-point line,” Myles Cale admitted. “It was a whole team loss. You can’t point a finger at anybody. Elite teams don’t let that happen. We know what we’ve got to do.”
“We’ve got to get a better defensive mindset,” Willard elaborated, doubling down on the statements his senior guard made moments prior to addressing the media himself. “I pretty much took all the blame. I kind of said, ‘You know, we’re not very good defensively, and that’s on me.’ We’ve got to figure out how to get stops when the game’s on the line. It’s easy to get stops when you’re playing well, but when you’re not playing well, we’ve got to figure out a way to dig in and get stops.”
4) Short Memories
Both Willard and his in-state counterpart, Rutgers head coach Steve Pikiell, have spoken countless times about the need to forget about the previous contest and refocus. Both Garden State teams face stiff tests in the next efforts, with Rutgers welcoming Michigan State to the RAC Thursday as it hopes to avenge a thorough 23-point beating in East Lansing earlier this month, while Seton Hall entertains Villanova for the second time in 12 days this Saturday, retribution for a 76-74 defeat prime on its mind after a loose ball foul helped steer the Wildcats to victory.
“We lost a tough game to ‘Nova and I thought they responded great,” Willard said of his team’s effort Wednesday. “Now, we lost a tough one and we’ve got to respond again. You never really have a night off, so we’ll see what they’re made of. So far, they’ve answered the bell.”
5) Blue Sky
Creighton, who split the Big East regular season championship with Seton Hall and Villanova last year, has now taken four straight matchups from the Pirates, this latest victory allowing the Bluejays to remain three games behind Villanova in the loss column of the Big East standings and within earshot for a consecutive league crown. But as much as McDermott would like to raise another banner, his team’s competitive spirit took on more importance than the gap between the top two spots on the leaderboard.
“It’s one of our goals, but to be honest, this season, you can’t get too caught up in that stuff,” he candidly reiterated. “There’s a lot of teams across the country that have been far less fortunate than us in our ability to play games. We’ve been blessed. While I’d love to win a conference championship, if somebody goes 9-1 and we go 15-5 or whatever it is, I’m not going to cry. Let’s just be happy that we’re playing college basketball, let’s be happy that these guys have the opportunity to do what they love to do, and then we’ll let the chips fall where they may.”
“It certainly looked like things weren’t going to go our way for a long time, but fortunately, our guys kept believing. I don’t remember how much time there was left the first time we got it to six or seven, but when that happened, I thought, ‘alright, we’ve got a real chance here.’ We did a good job with the zone, and then we got them off the backboards as well and it kind of stymied their flow.”
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